


the rules we play by

by Tyleet



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-05
Updated: 2012-03-05
Packaged: 2017-11-01 15:36:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/358464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyleet/pseuds/Tyleet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>middle of the night<br/>I smell coffee<br/>I get all the way to the kitchen, smiling<br/>before I remember you're dead<br/>-a softer world, 116</p>
            </blockquote>





	the rules we play by

Once, about a week after he’d moved into Baker Street, John woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t breathe. Physically could not draw in a breath of air. He lay in bed gasping and gasping until he could finally inhale. He’d been dreaming about Afghanistan, (he always dreamed about Afghanistan,) only this time the body bleeding under his hands was Harry, and when he couldn’t save her she’d looked up at him with cirrhosis-yellow eyes and said “where is my brother,” and when he’d said “I’m here,” she’d reached up and plunged her hand into his chest and got her fingers around his heart. When his breathing finally settled, John swung himself out of bed. He had a shift in the morning, but he wasn’t risking going straight back to sleep, not with that in his head. He’d go downstairs and read for a bit, and he’d still be able to get another three hours.

The lights were still on, which wasn’t that surprising, since Sherlock didn’t appear to have any set kind of sleeping schedule. What was surprising was the sight that arrested John halfway down the stairs, which was his flatmate bent over the coffee table, ironing a shirt with intense concentration.

“I was beginning to think you just went out and bought new ones when you were done wearing them,” John said, continuing down the stairs into the living room.

Sherlock didn’t look away from the shirt. “Don’t be absurd. I have a dry-cleaning service.”

John sat down in his armchair, grabbing his book off the floor. “Then what are you doing now?”

“Fingerprints,” Sherlock said tersely, and ran the iron over the shirt once more before putting it to the side. Carefully, he lifted the shirt off the table, and then dropped it to the floor, revealing the piece of paper that had been hidden underneath.

John’s not exactly sure what about that moment makes him remember it now. Maybe it’s the way it made no sense, at first. Sherlock Holmes, in the middle of the night, with the iron. Sherlock, acting like a human being. And then the way he’d made it make sense, a Holmesian, practical kind of sense—a murderer’s shopping list, doused in ninhydrin, reactive to heat, ready the way that everything in the world was always ready to open itself up and give away its secrets to him, always to him.

That’s the kind way to look at it, though, he thinks distantly, staring into Sherlock’s pale face for the first time in three years. It could also be the nightmare, the way the air he can taste in his mouth simply will not make it down to his lungs.

“John,” Sherlock says urgently, and takes a step forward.

John jerks back, and physically puts a hand between them, because he can’t breathe, he can’t _breathe_ , and if there’s one thing that’s not going to help it’s Sherlock getting closer.

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock says, and John isn’t imagining the slight shake in his voice, the sheen in his eyes, the clenching of one of his white fists. It looks like feeling. Maybe friendship, maybe love.

He waits for things to start making sense.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Rules We Play By (The In Remembrance of Me Rework)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/384711) by [templemarker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/templemarker/pseuds/templemarker)




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